Nuclear Deterrent

[The Bronze]

@thetopher I made the same mistake voting for the lib dems. Won't be doing that again. I would really recommend that site. He's not affiliated to any party or corporate interest so he can speak freely and criticise each of them which the main stream media often can't do.

I agree though best to keep to the topic hear rather than a sprawling political debate as they don't often end well.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I just think anyone named Ed Balls would get my vote. I mean, yes! I voted in favor of Balls. That's a slogan you can be proud of.

 

[The Bronze]

The Bronze. I totally agree. It's either the rabid full on psycho Tories or Labours Tory light imo. I would vote for the Greens, but at this moment in time I know they haven't got a hope in hell of getting in, and I'm after any party that stands a chance of blocking the Tories from getting another 5 years.

I think tactical voting is part of the problem. If more of us voted for what we believe in then those parties would have a better chance of getting votes in the future. I do understand that it doesn't help in an urgent situation where a least bad option might make all the difference.

 

[Silverspike]

Oh I agree, but imo If the lives of thousands of disabled people didn't hang on wether the nasty party get in again, I'd chance my arm and vote Green as normally I'm not a labour gal.

 

[white avenger]

It's just like owning a gun. You own a gun NOT to use it. And hoping you never have to, but with the understanding of what it means when you do. It's the same thing with nuclear weapons but on a much larger scale.

Not precisely. A bullet is more or less precise, (hopefully) pinpointing a particular target. Comparing a nuclear device to a gun would be like comparing killing a single mouse in your home to burning down the entire structure. The former eliminates the threat (the mouse) while leaving the environment your home intact. The latter renders the environment unusable while not really insuring that the threat hasn't somehow escaped. The main purposes of war is the seizure of net territory, the exploiting of new resources, and the subjugation of the population. The use of nuclear weapons make all of those goals impossible. We saw that in World War 2. To this day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are uninhabitable in any long term basis. No nation would use weapons like that on any sort of large scale attack.

The real threat of nuclear attack would be if some group of terrorists were to somehow get control of something like that, a threat which up to now, thank God, has never happened.

The main, in fact the only, advantage of nuclear weapons is to, in effect, level the playing field. As long as all of the major powers have the capability of nuclear attack, the balance of power is maintained. No one has so much of a power advantage that they pose a real threat to anyone else.

 

[white avenger]

Ethan Reigns: Not only is Hiroshima inhabited, it is the home of Mazda (and I have owned two of them). Nagasaki was not directly hit, so it is also inhabitable and inhabitable

You're right. My befuddled brain was superimposing the area around the recently damaged nuclear reactors in Japan with the A bomb sites. I have a Japanese friend who had family members who were evacuated from that area when the earthquake occurred. Whether they will ever be allowed to go back, according to him, is highly doubtful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant

 

[Ethan Reigns]

The idea of a nuclear deterrent only works if there are two nations with nuclear armament. Otherwise, a nuclear blast from a rocket originating in the ocean or a nuclear device assembled or delivered here would not be traceable. Late spring or early summer would be the worst for trying to find submarines because the thermocline (high temperatures at the surface and low temperatures below) tends to send sonar signals back to the surface. Only sonar originating under water from submarines or towed sonar can find them.

Once you have a number of nations or entities with nuclear armament, you no longer have any idea who to fight and if it is a diffuse terrorist organization, what are you going to bomb? A high-altitude blast would generate an electromagnetic pulse that would scramble all communications and could destroy all banking records, plunging the world into financial chaos.

It would be nice to have no weapons in the world but this will never happen because we keep supporting and electing psychopaths.

 

[Fuffy]

political discussions can get very ugly very quickly

Indeed they do 🙂
Hoping that this thread doesn't get 'ugly' thought.

 

[Taake]

It would be nice to have no weapons in the world but this will never happen because we keep supporting and electing psychopaths.

I'm okay with muskets, I people want to have muskets they can go right ahead. 😉

Also, even without the aforementioned elected psychopaths I feel pretty certain that people would still like to keep weapons around...